# 




Class. 
BooL 



Copyright^?- 



COPYRrGHT DEPOSIT. 



WILDERNESS SONGS 



WILDERNESS SONGS 



BY 



GRACE HAZARD CONKLING 

Author of "Afternoons of April " 



For there they that led us captive 
required of us songs. 

Psalm 137 




NEW YORK 
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
1920 






,*°v 



\*» 



COPTEIGHT, 1920 
BY 

HBNRY HOLT AND COMPANY 



MAY 24 1920 

l&fc <Suinn & JBoben Companp 

BOOK MANUFACTURERS 
RAH WAY NEW JERSEY 

©CUS71082 



TO MY DAUGHTERS 

ELSA and HILDA 

THESE SONGS OF THE WILDERNESS 

i Quien hubiese tal ventura ? 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

SONGS OF NEW ENGLAND ROADS 

The Road to Mount Tom .... 3 

The Road to Hockanum Ferry ... 5 

The Road to the Pool .... 7 

The Saw-mill on the Connecticut . . 8 
Songs on the Mohawk Trail 

To a Soldier in France ... 10 

The Little Prince . . . . 11 

White Birches 11 

^'The Whole Duty of Berkshire 

Brooks 12 

L^-tAfter Sunset 13 

To a Tired Child .... 14 

Journey's End 15 

SONGS OF WAR 

War 19 

The Return of Jeanne d'Arc ... 20 

•-'Refugees — Belgium 1914 .... 25 

At the Cross-Roads 27 

Letter to an Aviator in France . . 28 

The Names 32 

Adventure 34 

Six Songs from Over There ... 39 
Meuse Irish 
His Fallen Comrade Lull 
The Star Apology 

The Dream 43 

vii 



viii Contents 



PAGE 



The Ruined Cities 44 

His Letter 46 

■. The Nightingales of Flanders . . 48 

To Francis Ledwidge 49 

Rheims Cathedral — 1918 .... 50 

♦-'Victory Bells ...... 51 

I"*" Honorably Discharged " ... 52 

Poppies 53 

SEVEN INTERLUDES 

Frost on a Window 57 

Hilda in the Wood 58 

To the Schooner " Casco "... 60 

A Letter to Elsa 62 

The Caribbean from a Northern Garden 65 

I Have Cared for You, Moon ... 67 

Dilemma 69 

SONGS OF PLACES— OLD MEXICO 

Gulf of Mexico 75 

Guadalupe 75 

The Borda Gardens 76 

Orizaba 76 

Tampico 77 

Santa Teresa 78 

Popocatepetl ...... 78 

Cuernavaca 78 

huasteca 79 

Vera Cruz ....... 79 

Durango . 80 

Amecameca 80 

San Luis Potosi 81 



Contents ix 

NOCTURNES 

The Door-Harp 85 

Bells at Evening 86 

Night Song 87 

A Child's Song Overheard ... 88 

Parting 89 

White Foxglove 90 

The Rainy Moon 91 

Garden Dusk 92 

The Rose 93 

Cedars ........ 94 

Moonrise 95 

Solitude . . 96 

"Nuit d'Etoiles" 98 

" Reflets dans l'Eau " .... 99 

Elegy for the Irish Poet, Ledwidge . 100 

THE WILDERNESS 102 



Thanks are due to the editors of Poetry: A Magazine 
of Verse, The Atlantic Monthly, The Touchstone, The 
Yale Review, Good Housekeeping, Contemporary Verse, 
Harper's Magazine, The Century Magazine, Every- 
body's Magazine, The Poetry Review, The Bookman, 
and other periodicals, for their courteous permission to 
reprint many of the following poems ; also to Mr. 
Franklin P. Adams, editor of " The Conning Tower," 
New York Tribune, for permission to use " Dilemma." 



SONGS OF NEW ENGLAND ROADS 



THE ROAD TO MOUNT TOM 

The blue hills loom through morning mist : 
The wet road gleams like amethyst. 

What color is the road today? 

Thin amethyst with a silver soul, 

Or lavender in a veil of gray, 

Or crystal in a cloud's control? 

From golden-rod to meadow-sweet 

It takes the brief hill, running fleet 

Between the morning-glory vines 

And past the primrose hedge that shines 

With clusters pale of gilded dew. 

Where flowers of chicory bold and blue 

Repeat the sky along the ground, 

And black-eyed Susans golden-gowned 

Lean shrewdly for the gossips' view, 

It shrugs and nods with kindly smile, 

And with the morning on its face 

Slips down another silvery mile 

Through bramble blossoms and queen's-lace. 

It leaps to follow the clear river 

And laughs to see the ripples shiver, 

But there is depth in its gray eyes 

Within the shade where birches quiver. 



The Road to Mount Tom 

Mow with wild roses in its hair 
It springs along the mountain stair 
And climbs in sensitive surprise 
Closer and closer to the skies. 
The cool green tunnels of the wood, 
The graybeard rocks in solitude 
Wonder to see the road go by 
Like a swift spirit wild and shy ; 
For it has traveled fast and far 
With the steep azure for a goal: 
And yonder where great spaces are 
Even a road may claim a soul 
Wherein remembered flowers gleam, 
Lest all its journey fade to dream. 



4 



THE ROAD TO HOCKANUM FERRY 

I found a river lane 

All lovely and forlorn 

That plunged and climbed again 

Through softly clashing corn, 

Where curved and melting shapes 

Of hills like purple grapes 

Were veiled in powdery bloom ; 

And rich in showered gloom 

Dark Holyoke met the cloud that promised rain. 

A traveler like me, 
The river trod serene, 
Aware of melody 
In neighbor meadows green, 
And how that July day 
Ripening harvests lay 
Superb beneath the sun, 
In velvet every one, 
Colored like shallows of a southern sea. 
5 



The Road to HocJcanum Ferry 

I had no time to rest 

The valley was so sweet. 

The wind ran from the west 

On cool adventurous feet 

And put the storm to flight. 

Goldfinches for delight 

Quavered their tender words, 

And golden as the birds 

A great cloud burned upon the sunset's crest. 

And there I saw you stand, 

I well remember how, 

Heart of the radiant land 

So dim and lonely now. 

The fields in green and blue 

Had known the way to you. 

You were the river's word, 

And wind and cloud and bird 

Conspired to lay my hand within your hand. 



THE ROAD TO THE POOL 

I know a road that leads from town, 
A pale road in a Watteau gown » 
Of wild-rose sprays, that runs away 
All fragrant-sandaled, slim and gray. 

It slips along the laurel grove 
And down the hill, intent to rove, 
And crooks an arm of shadow cool 
Around a willow-silvered pool. 

I never travel very far 
Beyond the pool where willows are : 
There is a shy and native grace 
That hovers all about the place, 

And resting there I hardly know 
Just where it was I meant to go, 
Contented like the road that dozes 
In panniered gown of briar roses. 



THE SAW-MILL ON THE CONNECTICUT 

Where clear the river ponders 
The marshes' slow maroon, 

There floats a leveled forest 
Upon a broad lagoon. 

The bowl of spacious meadow 
Is brimmed with trunks of trees 

And there's a wilding fragrance 
Embroidered on the breeze. 

Along the azure water 

Most patiently they lie, 
And hear the shrieking saw-mill 

And memorize the sky, 

And see the impartial sunlight 

They knew so well of old, 
Turn shavings into satin 

And saw-dust into gold. 

All in the ripe September 

I tried to pass today. 
The smooth road beckoned Follow! 

But the logs whispered . . . Stay! 
8 



The Saw-Mill on the Connecticut 

And lest alone the tree-folk 
Go sadly to their death, 

I watched the pine surrender 
Its rich and final breath, 

And heard the oak's last murmur 
Where poured its scented dust- 

" I do but travel onward 
As valiant farers must." 



9 



SONGS ON THE MOHAWK TRAIL 

To a Soldier in France 

Oh, if today you dream of home, 
Think of a road we know, 

Untangling a blue skein of hills : 
And how the birches grow 

Against the light: and of that day 
Only a year ago ! 

For here along those hills again 

Your little son and I 
Are wishing the enchanted Trail 

Would lead us round the sky 
And drop us in a Flanders field 

To see you marching by. 

And now the child is eager for 
A wonder-tale of Greece, 

I tell him how you sailed away 
Like Jason for the Fleece, 

To find a glory more than gold 
Beside the winding Lys. 
10 



To a Soldier in France 

But while his deep eyes glow and glow, 

It seems another tells 
The tale : and beauty to my heart 

No word of meaning spells ; 
And the river on the valley floor 

Flows over Flemish bells. 

The Little Prince 

This pine cone is my offering, 

And here are berries blue, 
And if you'll take a birchen wand, 

I'll make it fine for you, 

With Pan's pipes cut in satin bark, 
And Hermes' winged shoe, 

And Orpheus' lyre shaped like a heart. 
Will such a scepter do? 

White Birches 

The clear wind swings a fairy flail 
Till all the tiptoe birches quail. 
The west is dreaming of the Grail. 

God knows I have no heart to sing ! 
I wish I had forgotten how, 
For what do poems matter now, 
Music or love or anything? 
11 



White Birches 

Yet I must shape my patient rhymes 

For terror of a grievous place, 

And blind my eyes with words sometimes, 

For fear of hunger on his face, 

Or pain when I can give no aid, 

Or silence where I may not come : 

As though a song could save me from 

The thought of all my world unmade ! 

The birches hold their laces frail 
Against the sunlight up the Trail 
And show me heaven through a veil. 



The Whole Duty op Berkshire Brooks 

To build the trout a crystal stair; 
To comb the hillside's thick green hair; 
To water jewel-weed and rushes; 
To teach first notes to baby thrushes ; 
To flavor raspberry and apple 
And make a whirling pool to dapple 
With scattered gold of late October ; 
To urge wise laughter on the sober 
And lend a dream to those who laugh ; 
To chant the beetle's epitaph ; 
To mirror the blue dragonfly, 
Frail air-plane of a slender sky ; 
12 



The Whole Duty of Berkshire Brooks 

Over the stones to lull and leap 
Herding the bubbles like white sheep ; 
The claims of worry to deny, 
And whisper sorrow into sleep ! 

After Sunset 

I have an understanding with the hills 
At evening when the slanted radiance fills 
Their hollows, and the great winds let them be, 
And they are quiet and look down at me. 
Oh, then I see the patience in their eyes 
Out of the centuries that made them wise. 
They lend me hoarded memory and I learn 
Their thoughts of granite and their whims of fern, 
And why a dream of forests must endure 
Though every tree be slain: and how the pure 
Invisible beauty has a word so brief, 
A flower can say it or a shaken leaf, 
But few may ever snare it in a song, 
Though for the quest a life is not too long. 
When the blue hills grow tender, when they pull 
The twilight close with gesture beautiful, 
And shadows are their garments, and the air 
Deepens, and the wild veery is at prayer, 
Their arms are strong around me : and I know 
That somehow I shall follow when you go 

13 



After Sunset 

To the still land beyond the evening star, 
Where everlasting hills and valleys are, 
And silence may not hurt us any more, 
And terror shall be past, and grief, and war. 



To a Tired Child 

This tall gray road that climbs the sky 

Is neighbor to a star, 
But if you watch the trees go by, 

It will not seem so far: 

And if you listen very still 

As though you were quite grown, 
Maybe the thrushes on the hill 

Will think themselves alone, 

And talk a bit in their own way 
Or gossip with the star. 

Hush ! for a star is shy they say, 
As any thrushes are. 



14 



JOURNEY'S END 

The long west like an evening sea 
Held the blue day mysteriously, 
And crest to crest the hilltops rolled 
Like breakers on a coast of gold. 

The bee sped home. The west wind sprang 
Along the valley-floor and sang 
Of fragrances he had to lend 
The apple-trees at Journey's End. 

Alone the silent house looked out 
To see the loveliness about, 
A happy house, aware of May, 
And gray as apple-leaves are gray. 

It heard the veery's vesper hymn, 
And watched the golden west go dim, 
Till even Greylock far and proud 
Had lost his plume of primrose cloud. 
15 



Journey's End 

Follow the road if you would see 
How dear a thing a house can be, 
And find it dreaming, faintly gray 
As budding apple-leaves in May. 

The ample hearth, the quiet room, 
The bough of coral apple-bloom, 
The singing bird, the waiting friend 
Are all for you at Journey's End. 



16 



SONGS OF WAR 



WAR 

Moon, moon, what have you seen 

The other side of the sky? 
A blasted land that once was green, 

Where fields and forests die. 
Naked hills and plains that shiver 

Desperate with their mud. 
A broken valley and a river 

Running deep with blood. 
Moon, moon, what of the men 

Where rivers thus run red? 
I saw them fall and fall again : 

I could not count the dead. 
I saw their souls like hosts of stars 

Climb the sky's dark blue hill. 
Oh, all in vain the other wars 

Since men are fighting still! 
Moon, moon, why is your look 

So pitiful and white? 
It is because of one who took 

The lonely road tonight : 
Who fought like valor's favorite child, 

Who burned the foe like flame, 
And went with Death unreconciled 

Crying his country's name. 
19 



THE RETURN OF JEANNE D'ARC 

Jeanne d'Aec : 

Why do the vales of Paradise 

Turn very France before my eyes 

With linked rivers, chain on chain, 

Cool Meuse and amber-sandaled Aisne, 

Angelic Oise serenely fleet, 

And wayward Rhone on winged feet? 

There gleams the Loire through lace of trees, 

Shod as of old with silences. 

And there with Paris at its breast 

The white Seine lies along the west 

How wistful! 

Nay, my serious Seine, 
Will nothing make thee smile again ? 
Has any gargoyle peering down 
From Notre Dame with hostile frown, 
Invaded thy still dreams at night? 
Dost thou lament the lost delight 
Of years long gone? 

I wonder why 
Proud Paris veils her from the sky 
In twilight vesture like a nun? 
I wonder, what has heaven done? 
20 



The Return of Jeanne a" Arc 

The lights are dead, the land is gray, 
Like ghosts the pale roads drift away 
Into the north ! Oh, I would see 
What years have wrought in Domremy, 
And how great Rheims above the town 
Lifts praying hands ! I must go down 
Among my people, I must know 
What makes my heart remember so, 
And why the voices cry so near, 
The human voices that I hear ! 

The Men of France : 

Now Mary lend thee out of heaven 
For dear defense of rivers seven 
And shattered gateways of the north! 
Angel of France, oh, lead us forth! 

Jeanne d'Arc : 

They are invaded ! They have need 
Of my heart's faith ! Yea, I will lead, 
But can they follow when I go 
Unseen and vague as winds that blow? 
Yet shepherd winds control the day, 
To make the poplars lean one way, 
To ruffle rivers into gold, 
Herd home the clouds into far fold, 
21 



The Return of Jeanne d'Arc 

And tirelessly evoke the shy 
Wild iris hidden in the sky. 
Can my wing'd spirit so persuade 
Their hearts to follow unafraid? 



The Men op France : 

Now Michael gird thee with his sword 
To thrust aside the alien horde, 
To bend and break and hurl them forth! 
Come, thou, and lead us to the north! 

Jeanne d'Arc : 

Soldiers, my great gray horse long gone 
To graze the meadows of the dawn 
Has thriven on clear asphodel, 
Till you shall learn, he travels well, 
And victory is still his stride. 
You see me not, but oh, I ride 
For France, and mark her starry goal, 
The faith and freedom of the soul. 
Do you but follow and give ear 
To heavenly voices that I hear, 
Till past the black besieging din 
And whistling menace shrill and thin, 
Emerge some silvery interval 
Of vanished bells that call and call. 
22 



The Return of Jeanne d'Arc 

Forsaken save of sun and stars, 

With portals blurred by battle scars, 

With towers torn and windows gone, 

'Tis mighty Rheims that cries you on ! 

Though heaven and earth be withering, 

Her ruined bells shall sob and sing: 

Though earth and heaven be blank and bare, 

You shall behold her standing there 

With wounded arms uplifted high 

For men of France who fight and die ! 

The Men of France : 

Now heaven help thee understand 
The peril come upon our land! 
Now God forgive our little worth 
And grant thee memory of earth! 

Jeanne d'Arc : 

I do remember everything 

I had forgotten : how the king 

For all my pleading still delayed, 

But God's own angels gave me aid. 

There was a Chinon nightingale 

That sang all night : " You will not fail ! " 

And there were always saintly trees, 

And dim old flowery villages, 



The Return of Jeanne d'Arc 

And rain-pricked pools like fretted shields, 

And sunny hills and mellow fields, 

Oh, there was France ! So now she lies 

Appealing-sweet before my eyes, 

Her wide flush rivers for delight, 

Her spires and poplars to invite 

The eyes and thoughts toward heaven. 

Men, 
I fight beside you once again, 
As those brief centuries ago : 
Each man of you a man I know ! 
In Paradise I have not seen 
Faces more steadfast and serene. 
Let them not tear the temple down 
That holds the soul of Rouen town, 
Nor crush the lilies Amiens wears, 
Nor those fair vines along the stairs 
Of Chartres, where some hand unknown 
Lured leaf and fruit from silver stone. 
This sunward hour of deepening dawn 
Brings glory of your comrades gone, 
And Rheims' lost bells are ringing ! " 

The Men op France : 

Hark! 
It is her voice! Jeanne d'Arc! Jeanne d'Arc! 



24 



REFUGEES 

Belgium — 1914 

11 Mother, the poplars cross the moon ; 

The road runs on so white and far, 
We shall not reach the city soon, 

Oh, tell me where we are ! " 

" Have patience, patience, little son, 
And we shall find the way again. 

(God show me the untraveled one! 
God give me rest from men !) " 

" Mother, you did not tell me why 
You hurried so to come away. 

I saw big soldiers riding by. 
I should have liked to stay." 

" Hush, little man, and I will sing 
Just like a soldier, if I can ; 

They have a song for everything. 
Listen, my little man! 

" This is the soldiers' marching song. 

We'll play this is the village street — 
" Yes, but this road is very long 

And stones have hurt my feet." 
25 



Refugees 

" No, little pilgrim, on with you, 
And yonder field shall be the town. 

I'll show you how the soldiers do 
Who travel up and down. 

" They march and sing and march again, 
Not minding all the stones and dust ; 

They go (God grant me rest from men !) 
Forward because they must." 

" Mother, I want to go to sleep." 
" No, darling ! Here is bread to eat ! 

(Oh, God if thou couldst let me weep 
Or heal my broken feet !) " 



26 



AT THE CROSS-ROADS 

He was a little Belgian lad 
Whom war had somehow failed to mar. 
Almost a baby face he had, 
Bewildered now and vaguely sad. 
" Where are you going in the wind 
And rain? And must you travel far? " 
He said, " I've started out to find 
The country where the mothers are." 



27 



LETTER TO AN AVIATOR IN FRANCE 

Lake Champlain — June, 1918 

A slope of summer sprinkled over 
With sweet tow-headed pigmy clover 
Melts suddenly to emerald air 
Between the moving leaves : for where 
The terrace plunges noiselessly 
A woven wall of apple-tree 
(Bearing instead of apples now 
The redwinged blackbird on the bough,) 
Enchants the lawn of sunstained green 
To seem as though it had not been. 
From where I sit, no roots are there 
Nor gnarly trunks show anywhere : 
Only the thick-leaved upper boughs 
Close-clustered for the robin's house. 
And tall above them up the sky 
The clear lake quivers like some high 
Wind-ruffled huge crystalline tree 
Whose roots like theirs are hid from me. 
It must have light and air and room, 
With clouds for leaves and hills for bloom, 
Those pale blue hills that flower along 
The living branches wild and strong 1 — 
28 



Letter to an Aviator in France 

I hear you laugh and say, 

" Why make 
A tree of crystal from the lake? 
Of course you may if you prefer 
Shape forests out of lake-water, 
Great stems of sapphire, shedding light! 
I understand you. It's all right. 
But since you are in fantastic mood, 
Build me a shelter in that wood 
To keep June sounds and colors m, 
And shut out the infernal din 
Of war my ears have heard and heard 
Until no meaning lights the word! " 

Well, when it's done and you come home, 

Lift up the latch of gilded foam 

And enter the transparent door 

And cross the grooved and shining floor 

Of a new house I'm building, sir, 

Of foam and wind on lake-water, 

With walls intangible about 

The inner rooms, to keep war out ! 

But this is nonsense. I have lost 
My whim. Your laugh recalled has cost 
So many Spanish castles, dear ! 
And I confess there's no tree here 
29 



Letter to an Aviator in France 

Heaven-tall, with hills upon its boughs, 
No sheltering sunlight-raftered house, 
But only water wide and bare, 
And distant shore and empty air, 
And far away across the world 
A proud enduring flag unfurled. 

Yet you and I could never live 

But for the respite that dreams give. 

Your letters have their intervals, 

Their hints of magic : a bird calls 

Or a strange cloud goes by. You hear 

Music unknown to mortal ear, 

And as you said in other days, 

" Last night I dreamed," your message says. 

So in the end I scorn your laughter, 

Lord of my secret thoughts ! And after 

War will come peace, you'll not deny, 

And wider light for dreaming by. 

Now, let's pretend as children do; 

It is my way of reaching you. 

Blue Vermont hills, we'll say, are fruit 

Which I may pluck when it shall suit 

My mood and send like grapes to you, 

All honey-rich and webbed with dew, 

Packed in their cloudy leaves and cool 

Of color like a twilight pool. 



Letter to an Aviator in France 

And if you've wandered past the sky 

On some new errand, comrade, I 

Shall climb the tree the fruit grew on, 

To see which road it is you've gone. 

How shall I plan to overtake 

Those wings of yours? And I must make, 

In time to welcome you, a proud 

White castle of some mountain cloud . . . 

But no more now . . . The old clock clangs 

Somewhere within. A veery hangs 

Small golden wreaths along the alder, 

And mother Robin's babies called her 

Just now from their leaf-hidden room, 

And sunset roses are in bloom. 



31 



THE NAMES 

Now he is dead who loved the traveling cloud 
And knew the white road to the harbor ships : 
And romance has gone by that called aloud 
His name, and summoned laughter from his lips. 
I read the words, I know that this is true, 
But will you other women feel as I 
When the tall door of Paradise swings to, 
And glory has forsaken the wide sky? 
For though I read, my heart cannot believe. 
The wind cries No! along the glittering track 
Above the dusk, and will not let me grieve. 
(It was a wind that brought Odysseus back.) 
And oh, the copses where the thrushes dwell, 
The foxglove forests with their outlaw bees, 
The moon-rise like a distance-softened bell, 
The hills that claimed him ! I must think on these, 
(And how I always knew that he had heard 
The music dripping from the rainbow's edge, 
And the brief meteor's infrequent word, 
And God's low footfall in the river-sedge,) 
Till all wild earth lays passionate hands on him, 
The very islands will not let him go, 
Nor the old mountains, nor the seas that rim 
The unknown clinging lands ! 

32 



The Names 

Thus do I know 
How strange the message that will come to you, 
All of you others who must read the names : 
And while your hearts deny that truth be true, 
The letters of one word like separate flames 
Will light the face of a forgotten flower, 
Or broken water with the sunset stained, 
Or a lost midnight, and the secret hour 
Of wonder when nor thought nor speech remained : 
And one of you will say It was not vain! 
And one recall the valiant things he said, 
But all the time, reiterate as rain, 
Some jest of his turned sharp, now he is dead, 
Will leave your every feeling wholly numb, 
Forbidding tears, the tears that may not come. 

Almost they come to me: so long you mil 
Stare at the names, incredulous and still. 



ADVENTURE 

" Oh, we shall travel yet," 
You told me, " late or soon ! 
Hearken and overhear 
Syllables of the moon 
Meant for the tides to fear, 
Borrow her silver threat, 
Make their wild hearts obey : 
Climb in our feathered shoon 
Tall waves that dare not wet 
Our feet with a curl of foam : 
Stroll through the coral home, 
While ocean leans one way — 
All this and more, some day ! " 
You said. Could I forget? 

We talked like children then. 
You asked, " What will you wear 
The other side of the sky? 
A planet in your hair ? 
A gown of clear-spun air 
Colored like evening when 
The sunset has blown by? 
34> 



Adventure 

Garments of ether made 

With broideries of cloud 

Would suit you : but for me 

There will be ways maybe 

To dress more soberly: 

A shadowed purple proud 

Or grave enameled blue, 

Oh, never be afraid 

I shall not look as well as you ! " 

You cried, and laughed aloud. 

I knew that you would fly, 
Only not how soon ! 

Your spirit craved adventure in the moon. 
Daybreak tempted you, 
And I would hear you sigh, 
Baffled by morning's blue. 
I have heard you say, 
" They seem not far away, 
The spaces I would know. 
The infinite is not tall 
When longing is on me 
To climb the sky's sheer wall 
High enough to see! 
Unhindered I would go 
Across the bridge of light 
Into the silence white. 
85 



Adventure 

Voices of past lives call 
Along my blood, and all 
My being must respond 
When winds rise up and fall 
Down the clear deeps beyond. 
I want to go with the wind 
The other side of the sky : 
Who knows what I might find? 
And then you smiled and I 
Heard in my heart Goodbye. 



Now when the day is right, 
And it is flying weather, 
I think of the last talk we had together 
Through a midsummer night. 
" Well, then," you said, " since we must fight 
Best choose the field of air. 
Plunge past the cloud, pursue 
The foe down alleys blue 
Round sunlight corners, ride 
Straight up the sapphire stair 
And let the wind decide ! 
. . . The wind's a friend of mine, 
And with a ship to steer 
That matters much ! If there is work to do ! 
Don't trust them if you hear . . . 
36 



Adventure 

I mean ... if they should say I'm dead, 
Be sure I'm waiting ! " finally you said. 

Small news could come to us. 

I know they found you there 

In a torn Flanders field 

Under the crashing clouds, 

And wrapped you in the flag, 

Strangest of all shrouds, 

That turned your mud-stained khaki glorious. 

There was a soldiers' prayer, 

And the guns called again, 

Called to living men . . . 

And battle-smoke concealed 

The morning's crystal crag 

Towering aglow, 

Wherefrom you turned to go, 

Free for adventure unrevealed 

You longed to know. 

Nothing is tragic here 
Unless the dreaming stops. 
Sometimes when twilight drops 
I am too lonely and your words 
Go crying like lost birds, 
And I unlearn my year. 
But nomad wings so dear 
37 



Adventure 

To you, and broken speech 

Of wild things each to each, 

The veering duck that lie 

Sidelong the wind and cry 

In passing, the brief swan 

Leaning on sails of snow, 

These bring you very near; 

With them you soar and go. 

You drive the slant geese down across the dawn : 

Shouting you rush by 

Along the sky ! 

And one day I shall follow south, 

Hear from your own mouth 

What highways you have gone, 

What wonders you have seen. 

When Spring again is green, 

And it is lilac-time in all the lanes, 

Say to me — I shall know — 

What you said long ago. 

Let me not once forget. 

Call through the emerald netted rains, 

Say, We shall travel yet 

Past all imagmmgs. 

There will be much to do 

Among the stars with you 

When we have wings. 



SIX SONGS FROM OVER THERE 



The Star 

Dusk made a thrust at my heart 
With a star like a sword. 

I had forgotten the war 
Though the guns roared 

And shells droned on and on 
In a sullen chord. 

It was not the noise and the reek 

But a star in the sky 
Made the black trench real again. 

Starlight, and I 
Saw beauty vanished away 

And love gone by. 

Meuse 

The river marched an extra mile 

To loop the field and spare the grass, 

And that was where wild tulips lived 
And where the blackbird liked to pass. 
39 



Meuse 



It seemed a sorry thing that we 
Unmindful of the river's grace 

Should plow the tulip-field with shells 
And leave a desert in its place. 



His Fallen Comrade 

I wish that I could tell him Spring 
Drifts north along the valley track 
Across new violets, and how 
The myrtle warblers have come back 
That love his ragged cedar-trees, 
And how the pear invites the bees. 

He said that news like this from home 
Would call him back though he were dead, 
Nor any distant Paradise 
Could hold him. That is what he said, 
And now the letter's here, and he 
Returns to read, how stealthily ! 

Irish 

As I was plodding through the mud, 
Through the mud and through, 

Somewhere I heard a fiddle cry 
A tune the way they do ; 
40 



Irish 



And it was sweet, the way they have, 
Through my heart and through, 

Making a picture on the dark 
Of you! 



Lull 

After the uproar 
Such silence is strange. 
Not a nerve" in my body 
But aches from the change. 
Wild thoughts go clanging 
Loud as the guns : 
I have forgotten 
The small quiet ones. 

Now by such darkness 
Made free of dreams, 
Where looms my mountain? 
Where flow my streams? 
Where is the country 
Of my delight? 
I have forgotten 
Dreaming, tonight. 

41 



Apology 

Apology 

There is an air of Bach that means 

A late New England Spring to me: 
Soundless collisions among clouds, 

White apple-honey for the bee, 
The cricket limbering his trill, 

The grass wherefrom he likes to sing, 
The rainbow leaning to the lawn, 

The spider's wheel, the redstart's wing. 

Here in a trench of Flanders mud 

It is the only thing I know 
That means a catbird whistling down 

A lane I followed long ago. 
Again I find the open door 

Beyond the twisted lilac-tree, 
And through that latticed German tune 

You look at me. 



42 



THE DREAM 

A hillside acre or two astride a brook, 
Tipped toward bliie valley, fenced with apple-trees, 
A strip of flowery pasture whence the bees 

Could gather flavors for your winter book, 

Red cedar for the hearth, a lane to crook 
An elbow round the cottage, silences 
To tempt the thrushes, simple things like these 

Were in our dream ; for these we used to look. 
And now I have found a place of delicate heath 
And downward-leaping stream and leaning hill 
Above a valley blue as grapes are blue, 
It must be fought for as you fight beneath 
The flag of stars. Our dream must wait until 
France has her cities back, and I have you. 



43 



THE RUINED CITIES 

They are not gone, those fair French towns, 
They shall evade oblivion's spell, 
Put on their towers again like crowns 
And stand triumphant where they fell. 
Though now no street, not one, remain, 
Where once a hundred streets were wide, 
The feet of men will find again 
Those ancient ways of love and pride: 
The hands of men like a caress 
Shall touch them, stone on tragic stone, 
Remembering their ancientness, 
Eager to give them back their own ! 
They are not dead, they only sleep, 
Exiled to dreams without a bell 
To call them home: but men will keep 
Their silvery shapes in mind to tell 
The builders how to fashion them 
In gray of dove and gray dove's wing, 
And where they curved to their bright hem 
Of field or river ! Everything 
They were, their slender uprightness, 
Their candid strength and pure design 
Survives. They shall not do with less 
Than their full dower of lovely line, 
44 



The Ruined Cities 

a 

Naked the stone or wrought like lace. 
And even now some artist knows 
By heart the lost cathedral's grace, 
Restores in thought its ruined rose, 
And lifts his dream above the plain. 
They shall come back, forget their trance 
Of death-like slumber, live again, 
Cities of a victorious France! 



45 



HIS LETTER 

Beyond the steel and the fire 
Gleams the old desire. 

War has not taken wonder away. 
More poignant where its lightnings play 
The appeal of beauty's lonely cry ! 
I shall go dreaming till I die. 
I see wind-burnished coin-bright towns, 
And roads that shine across the downs ; 
A dusk of forest and a line 
Of light that silvers the design ; 
Always the shadowed and the bright, 
A halo for the blackest night ! 
— Islands where I have never been ; 
The rainbow toppling down the green 
Of tilted seas that rake a ship: 
The molten lava-streams that slip 
From fiery crater-rims and fill 
The dark with rose and daffodil; 
Lakes mountain-hid and spiritual; 
The undiscovered waterfall 
Like a white feather through the trees, 
The undiscovered bird in these 
46 



His Letter 

Singing, always alone, alone, 
The lovely voice of the unknown, 
This is Romance chameleon-clad 
That called me when I was a lad, 
That calls me now to follow well 
Through blighted Picardy to hell, 
Through hell to some elusive bliss 
Of new adventure after this : 
To follow without asking why ! 
So you will know, if I must die 
Upon this last and strangest quest, 
It did not differ from the rest 
In simple wonder dark and bright, 
A halo for the blackest night : 
And freedom like the unknown bird 
Was a wild voice I had not heard, 
Was a pure voice I fought to hear ! 
These words to you, my very dear, 

Beyond the steel and the fire 
Gleams the old desire. 



47 



THE NIGHTINGALES OF FLANDERS 



; Le rossignol n'est pas mobilise." 

A French Soldier. 



The nightingales of Flanders, 
They have not gone to war. 

A soldier heard them singing 
Where they had sung before. 

The earth was torn and quaking, 
The sky about to fall. 

The nightingales of Flanders, 
They minded not at all. 

At intervals he heard them 
Between the guns, he said, 

Making a thrilling music 
Above the listening dead. 

Of woodland and of orchard 
And roadside tree bereft, 

The nightingales of Flanders 
Were singing, France is left! 

48 



TO FRANCIS LEDWIDGE 

KUled in France— July 31, 1917 

Shall I meet Keats in some wild isle of balm 
Dreaming beside a tarn? 

Francis Ledwidge. 

Lover of the lane-rose, of rainy trees 

And speech of corn and wind upon the hill, 

Voice of the deep fields, high priest of the bees 

When summer whispers all you say she will, 

Beside what crystal water poised and still 

Have you bewitched his dreams with news of these 

And of his nightingale, talking until 

The wild isle listens and the fairy seas? 

But if as far as this dark rumor flies, 

And he should ask of England and of France, 

Craving the dear-bought wisdom of your eyes, 

Oh, give him comfort ! Tell him they still advance, 

Those grim and glorious men who mean to free 

Your Flanders grave, and his in Italy ! 



49 



RHEIMS CATHEDRAL— 1918 

The cathedral's lyric stones 
Spoke in faithful monotones. 
Through their dust I heard them say 
Beauty has not gone away. 
Windows where the glass was gone 
Put the sky's blue crystal on, 
And the barest to my sight 
Was a rose of colored light. 
Where a saint had left his place 
Memory filled the wounded space, 
And the nave I knew so well 
Trembled to a ghostly bell. 
Forth I went to see once more 
Joan of Arc before the door 
Still unhurt and poised to ride. 
Victory! I thought she cried. 



50 



VICTORY BELLS 

I heard the bells across the trees, 
I heard them ride the plunging breeze 
Above the roofs from tower and spire, 
And they were leaping like a fire, 
And they were shining like a stream 
With sun to make its music gleam. 
Deep tones as though the thunder tolled, 
Cool voices thin as tinkling gold, 
They shook the spangled autumn down 
From out the tree-tops of the town ; 
They left great furrows in the air 
And made a clangor everywhere 
As of metallic wings. They flew 
Aloft in spirals to the blue 
Tall tent of heaven and disappeared. 
And others, swift as though they feared 
The people might not heed their cry 
Went shouting Victory up the sky. 
They did not say that war is done, 
Only that glory has begun 
Like sunrise, and the coming day 
Will burn the clouds of war away. 
There will be time for dreams again, 
And home-coming for weary men. 
51 



" HONORABLY DISCHARGED " 

Will it be dusk when he comes home? 

The thick and starry fringe of night 
That sweeps the garden shrubberies 

And turns the flowers white? 

Or will a morning bring him back? 

A golden noon, an afternoon? 
If I could set the sun ahead 

And fool the plodding moon ! 



52 



POPPIES 

When I grow old 

And dull and cold, 

I'll warm myself again, 

Where poppy petals drift and fall 

Like drops of scarlet rain, 

Thinking of gallant soldier-men 

With poppies for a pall: 

When I forget their deeds, oh, then 

Come Cold, and Dark, and all ! 



53 



SEVEN INTERLUDES 



FROST ON A WINDOW 

This forest looks the way 
Nightingales sound. 
Tall larches lilt and sway 
Above the glittering ground : 
The wild white cherry spray 
Scatters radiance round. 

The chuckle of the nightingale 

Is like this elfin wood. 

Even as his gleaming trills assail 

The spirit's solitude, 

These leaves of light, these branches frail 

Are music's very mood. 

The song of these fantastic trees, 
The plumes of frost they wear, 
Are for the poet's whim who sees 
Through a deceptive air, 
And has an ear for melodies 
When never a sound is there. 



57 



HILDA IN THE WOOD 

Your talk was soft in the wood. 
You spoke small soft words like moss 
Or green velvet mullein leaves. 
You showed me mulleins holding the first snow : 
You brought me wintergreen . . . squaw- 
berry . . . 
A snail's coiled shell ... 

It was you who saw the wind 

Perched like Puck 

On a hillside boulder. 

It was you who told me of his peacock feather 

Made of air. 

I remember hilltop birchtrees 

Balancing marble clouds 

On pale fingertips. 

I remember your fingertips stained with earth, 

With ground-pine . . . roots of fern . . . 

Your hand was like a cold little stone 

In a glove of lichen. 

58 



Hilda in the Wood 

If there were to come a day without you, 

If ever I look for you 

And you are gone, 

What shall I do with this memory 

Soft-colored like your words, 

Your wild small words of wind and mullein leaves 

Furred with snow ! 



59 



TO THE SCHOONER CASCO DEAR TO R. L. S. 

(Remodeled for the fishing-trade of the Pacific Coast) 

Has he forsaken heaven quite 

Where is no sail nor any sea, 
And for the sake of lost delight 

Evaded immortality, 
To feel the wind that sets you free, 

And tempt you to a wide blue flight 
Where any trailing dawn may be 

Deep-fringed with breakers bursting white? 

Then you will tread again the floor 

Uncharted you were wont to roam, 
And flee in ecstasy before 

The squalls that fail to drive you home : 
Will hear his laughter as of yore 

When the cloud breaks, the green waves comb, 
And make his spirit glad once more 

With flagons of enchanted foam ! 
60 



To the Schooner Casco Dear to R. L. S. 

But when the ocean's azure swoon 

Glasses some isle of memories, 
Steal thither softly to maroon 

Your wilful master if he please ! 
Slip in by night behind the trees 

Of its star-paven deep lagoon, 
And drift across the Pleiades 

To anchor in the floating moon. 



61 



A LETTER TO ELSA 

Rose-red, russet-brown, 
Were there elves in your town ? 
When you breathed little words 
Would they flock in like birds? 
Did you eat magic fruit 
For your supper to suit 
The spiced garden, the dew, 
And the sweetness of you? 
Had the elf-mother spread 
A low table with bread 
And milk white as the moon? 
Did you find very soon 
A bed white as the milk, 
Smooth and tender with silk, 
Where you laid your tired head, 
Russet-brown, rose-red? 

Russet-eyes, rose-mouth, 
When the wind's from the south, 
When he rustles and stirs 
In the plumed junipers, 
62 



A Letter to Elsa 

Does he bring coaxing words 
From the sly mocking-birds ? 
Do they call you to come 
Where the wind is at home 
When he rests from his trips ? 
Elf-locks, scarlet-lips, 
I am wiser than they. 
Hearken now what I say ! 

I will build you a house 
Velvet-gray like a mouse, 
Snug and shy among trees. 
There shall be if you please 
Peacocks pacing the walks, 
And a fountain that talks, 
And a playmate for you, 
And a green cockatoo. 
Bees shall dwell in the phlox 
And the gay hollyhocks, 
And their honey will be 
In the sycamore tree. 
Every dusk I will spread 
A low table with bread 
And a brown honey-comb 
(When the bees have gone home), 
And heaped mulberry-fruit, 
(While the thrush tries his flute), 
63 



A Letter to Elsa 

And milk white as the moon. 
Then if bed-time come soon, 
You shall lay your dear head 
On a smooth silken bed 
To the thrush-lullabies, 
Russet-brown, rose-red, 
Rose-mouth, russet-eyes 1 



64 



THE CARIBBEAN FROM A NORTHERN 
GARDEN 

Down a trail of blue larkspurs 

Out of far memory 
Flashed a day of strange islands 

On their broad wings of sea, 

Till, the garden forgotten, 

I was out and away 
In a boat's swinging crescent 

On a wind-furrowed bay. 

And delight shook my spirit 
As the wind shakes a harp. 

Oh, the rush of dark headlands 
To the sea gleaming sharp 

With a surf like a sword-edge ! 

Oh, the jewel-green hill 
With its white coral village 

Like a cloud standing still ! 

Though I tangle the sunset 

In the dim northern trees, 

Though I turn the pale foxglove 

Into moon-colored cays 

65 



The Caribbean 

Where the larkspur-blue water 
Casts a net of wild foam, 

In this winter-doomed garden 
How should I be at home? 



66 



I HAVE CARED FOR YOU, MOON 

I have cared for you, Moon, 
Cold as you are, 
Frozen on the sky 
With your dangling star. 

It is not your shape, 
Nor your lure of light, 
Holding the sun 
On your breast all night : 

It is not your voice, 
I have never heard 
Your glittering cry, 
Your wandering word. 

Yet you are romance 
And you are song. 
I have cared for you, Moon, 
Long, long, 

Since I first paid toll 
With a coin of dream 
On the road you silver. 
You peer and gleam 
67 



/ Have Cared for You, Moon 

With a wistful look 
On your haunted face, 
As though Earth were 
A wonderful place. 



68 



DILEMMA 

Dolores, I want to make a poem 

About a river-valley full of apple-orchards in bloom, 

Im wunderschonen Monat Mai! 

They tell me I like to talk about Pan, 

But I was planning this valley for Hermes out of heaven, 

Or up from the south, maybe, and slightly tanned. 

I should need words both cloudy and iridescent, 

For landscape gardening on a large scale: 

I should need plenty of elms and willows and poplars 

And birds in the trees. 

I think I should write figuratively of the birds, 

A smoke of starlings, 

A flame of scarlet tanagers, 

Though there are not so many tanagers after all : 

And I have a favorite phrase about the veery's vesper 

bells, 
Even if I did hear him yesterday at dawn, 
Playing an Irish harp! 

So startling is the beauty of this valley with its river, 
And the orchards hovering above it like wings, 

69 



Dilemma 

I should like to tell you about it in long lines like the 

curve 
Of the river or the hills — 

Blue air cloudrflecked as with the foam of May, 
Green hills superbly hollowed to the sweep 
Of the broad river's teeming deep delight 
That feels slow summer coming up this way: 
Gulls lately from the sea in swaying flight, 
And flickers shrilling from the orchards steep, 
The moveless plumes of elms in feathered sleep, 
And pear-trees from the vale-crest rushing white, 
Transparent poplars peering pale and bright 
At new-leaf secrets willows cannot keep — 

And so on, and so on. 

But my river is mere words, and as for the valley 

Somehow I fail to make my orchards stand on edge above 

blue water 
Under the sunlight. 

I miss the sheer pale suddenness of the apparition. 
For me they will not leap along the hillsides 
White and curved and smooth as the feathers on a 

seagull's neck. 
And somebody else has said slow summer, 
Or was it Spring? 

70 



Dilemma 

Dolores, 

How can I measure this wonder? 

Why must I hang bells of rhyme upon the skirts of 

beauty, 
Or put my imagination through a sieve ? 
That imagination that at one moment lets me look at the 

Hudson in its valley 
As though it were peacocks pacing slowly toward the sea 
Between hills of mother-of-pearl: 
And at another, lets me tie the river into a bow-knot 
To lay against the orchards 
Like a jewel'. 



71 



SONGS OF PLACES 

(Old Mexico) 



Gulf of Mexico 

Now the steady ship runs south 
Over submerged stars : 

Plows along the Milky Way, 
Swings across deep Mars, 

Tossing foam of worlds aside, 
Treading glory down: 

I have seen half heaven tonight 
Dip and dive and drown. 



Guadalupe 

No matter how you love me 
You cannot keep me home. 

Along the airy lane of bells 
Beyond the peacock dome, 

I know the way to travel 

And I shall go at will, 
Where the stone sails await the wind 

Upon the holy hill. 
75 



Guadalupe 

The mariners who made them, 
They have been long away ; 

But when a wind from heaven blows 
They will come back some day, 

And I shall hear them singing, 
And watch the stone sails fill, 

Till the white city like a ship 
Moves out across the hill. 

The Borda Gardens 

The swans were like a flowing song 
With crystal in the rhyme. 

They sailed from line to limpid line 
And beauty marked the time. 

There was a rhythm in that song, 

An accent no one knows, 
And it has gone away again 

Where all the music goes. 

Orizaba 

Is it long to Orizaba? 

Have I far to go ? 
When I ask the carrier-pigeons 

They don't know. 
76 



Orizaba 

There's a mountain I am seeking, 
Feathered all with snow. 

When I ask the valley-orchids 
They don't know. 

Like an orchid pale and folded, 

Like a snowy bird, 
That's the mountain I am seeking, 

Have you heard? 

You can see it on the sunrise 
When the clear winds blow. 

Is it far to Orizaba, 
Do you know? 



Tampico 

Oh, cut me reeds to blow upon 

Or gather me a star, 
But leave the sultry passion-flowers 

Growing where they are. 

I fear their somber yellow deeps, 
Their whirling fringe of black, 

And he who gives a passion-flower 
Always asks it back. 
77 



Santa Teresa 

Santa Teresa 

A fern-shaped valley green, 
Pale trees that drift their leaves, 
The dew that drips unseen 
From a rose's eaves : 

So still the place, I know 
The snail looks from his door. 
I shall not see it so 
Any more. 

Popocatepetl 

Dusk, and the far volcano wears 

A film of sunset sky. 
The valley glimmers like the sea 

And little winds go by. 

The jasmine flower upon my breast 

Is an insistent word, 
But patiently my stubborn heart 

Pretends it has not heard. 

CUERNAVACA 

You would not keep me near you, 
You could not hold me far, 

And now it does not matter 
Where you are. 
78 



Cuernavaca 

My heart has long forgotten 

The ardent words you said, 

But not the great stars blazing 
Overhead ! 



Huasteca 

Orchid, elfin orchid 

Made of purple air, 
Yours is wistful silence 

Hard to bear. 

Were he here, my lover, 

Wiser far than I, 
We should hear your beauty 

Sing and sigh. 

Vera Cruz 

I see them in the storm-washed light 
Like ebony against the sand, 

The wrecks of ships lost long ago 
From many a mellow land. 

Oh, may the sand soon cover them 
And all their sorrow be unlearned ! 

They are too like those dreams of mine 
That nevermore returned. 
79 



Durango 

DURANGO 

The cactus candelabra 

Are lit with yellow flowers. 

Come take my jocund mornings, 
My glancing April hours ! 

Do you not know the desert 
Is slow to bloom again? 

The trail is long to April 
Across an arid plain, 

And it is but a moment, 
The time of cactus flowers : 

Before the dusty journey 
Oh, share my April hours ! 

Amecameca 

I climb the sacred hillside 
Up through the evening blue. 

The ancient steps are silvered 
By starlight and the dew. 

And if the gray church vanish 
My soul may worship still, 

For God has hung the Southern Cross 
Above the kneeling hill. 
80 



San Luis Potosi 
San Luis Potosi 

Oh, for the comet's trail 
Across the purple sky, 

So far we could not hear 
The glory rushing by ! 

It will not come again 

For more than ninety years, 
When I shall have forgotten 

All my tears. 



81 



NOCTURNES 



THE DOOR-HARP 

You went. There drifted back to me 
The last breath of a melody, 
Diffused iEolian loveliness 
Too fugitive to calm or bless. 
I wonder human ear could know 
A wraith of music fading so, 
It left no footprints on the wind 
Nor even memory behind. 

Was it some solacing sweet air, 
Or cadence of a soul's despair? 
The small harp quivers on the door 
That you have closed forevermore, 
But will not breathe the lyric cry 
I have forgotten ; and its sigh 
When others go, is only pain 
Because you do not come again. 



85 



BELLS AT EVENING 

I heard the bells turn over, 

Over and over until 
They had poured their music : 

None was left to spill. 

It was fresh and dusky 
When the big bells rang, 

And I stopped to listen, 
Wondering why they sang, 

Wondering and not caring, 
While the darkness fell, 

And the west wind trembled 
Tossed from bell to bell. 



86 



NIGHT SONG 

The road runs up against the stars, 
Cool stars low-swinging in the night. 
The valley-guarded river gleams, 
The pear-trees glimmer white. 

A little wind walks in content 
Along the quiet star-filled wood. 
This is the very road we went 
And here is where we stood. 

What unseen whisperers are these 
Whose voices I have always known? 
Only the happy heaven-heard trees, 
For I am here alone. 



87 



A CHILD'S SONG OVERHEARD 

I heard you singing, singing alone 
Of river-sand and glittering stone, 
Of a curved valley like a blade 
And one who dwelt there unafraid. 

Where was the river ? Who the king 
Whose deeds you were remembering? 
Why did you make his glory high 
And spangled like a stretch of sky? 

Oh, this must be a land you knew 
In dreams all lovely and untrue ; 
And of the king I heard you say 
He lives a million years away 

And holds the river in his hand 
Between its ribbons of bright sand 
Till suddenly he lets it fall 
Down like a laughter musical ! 



88 



PARTING 

The round of a hill, 
The glass of a pool, 
Trees folded, still, 
Trees dreamy, cool, 

Trees with green wings, 
The road going past 
A house that clings 
Where the moon rose last, 

Where the moon rose late 
The night you were gone, 
And you would not wait 
For her mellow dawn ! 



89 



WHITE FOXGLOVE 

Here in a leaning tower 
Brown bees are at home. 
This is the moon-loved flower. 
Like cells of honey-comb 
These taper and are brimmed 
With savors of wild dew. 
Oh, bees gold-laced and limbed, 
I envy you! 



90 



THE RAINY MOON 

Did you see the rainy moon 
Up above the roofs last night ? 
It was like a primrose flower 
When the mist is blowing white, 

When a film of gossamer 
Flutters from the evening tree, 
And the primroses are pale 
And the dusk has come to be. 

I should like to go with you 
Past the primrose-haunted mist 
To that hill among the clouds 
Where we trembled, where we kissed. 



91 



GARDEN DUSK 

This stillness made of azure 
And veiled with lavender 

Must be my daylight garden 
Where all the pigeons were ! 

Blue dusk upon my eyelids, 

Your drifting moods disclose 

The moth that is a flower, 

The wings that are a rose. 

Make haste, exhale your sweetness, 
For you must vanish soon : 

The garden will forget you 
At rising of the moon. 

A glory dawns predestined 

Of old to banish you 
And bind you fast with rainbows 

In dungeons of the dew. 

And who will then remember 

Your cool and gossamer art? 

Ah, never moon may exile 

Your beauty from my heart ! 
92 



THE ROSE 

The little rose is dust, my dear, 

The elfin wind is gone 
That sang a song of silver words 

And cooled our hearts with dawn. 

And what is left to hope, my dear, 

Or what is left to say? 
The rose, the little wind and you 

Have gone so far away. 



CEDARS 

(For a Color-Etching by George Senseney) 

They are so dark, the cedars, 
They keep so still a house ! 

Muffled in purple silence 

They fold their brooding boughs. 

Yet they are shaped like music 
When the heart listens most ! 

They are the wind's grave gesture, 
The singing river's ghost, 

And twilight in their branches 
Is murmurous and cool, 

Like strings of water falling 
Into a waiting pool. 



94 



MOONRISE 

(For a Color-Etching by George Senseney) 

Along the dunes the wind leans low 
Where amethystine shadows flow 
Softly among gigantic trees 
Like tides of sleep about their knees. 

Intense and strange the moon sweeps by 
Alone across the hollow sky. 
No cloud, no star, no gray-winged bird, 
Only her breathing sail unheard I 

Cleanly her white bow cuts the dark. 
She cleaves the night with never a spark 
Of fiery spray from sun or star. 
I wonder who the sailors are? 



95 



SOLITUDE 

(For a Color-Etching by George Senseney) 

Color. The wing of a cloud. 
Stillness. The wind at rest 
That cried all day aloud. 
The wood unmoving stands 
Against the topaz west. 
Oh, straining wind-torn trees, 
Are you at last quite still 
With the dusk in your hands? 
What is it you descry 
By august lantern-light 
Of planets, where the sky 
Touches the hill? 

Souls. Souls that go by 
Tireless. Going home. 
Gray wind-glimmering things 
Through the moon-empty night, 
Gleaming wings, 
Foam 

Of spirits, white, white! 
96 



Solitude 

Past the folded fire 
Of the sunset flying, 
Always a mist that blows, 
A silvery shape that goes, 
A vanishing, a crying. . 



97 



"NUIT D'ETOILES": CLAUDE DEBUSSY 



{Sung to an accompaniment of harps) 
TO E. D. 

Oh she was in a golden gown 

With harps about her like tall wings : 
They must have fluttered from that town 

Made all of gold and precious things : 
And golden too above the strings 

Her gleaming voice bewitched the ear 
Like the night-wandering bird that sings 

An air wild Eden used to hear ! 



98 



" REFLETS DANS L'EAU " : CLAUDE DEBUSSY 

(Harp ensemble) 
TO K. F. 

That remote music, that delight 
Of breathing harps from far away, 
Awoke my thought as spirits might 
If I could hear the things they say. 

I think they made the cobweb chord 
Debussy hangs with trembling dew, 
And planned that octave like a sword 
That cuts the gossamer strands in two. 

They lean above his pool of pearl, 
Its lucent shade, its shimmerings 
Of light like little waves that curl 
And break across the startled strings 

Till the reflecting water shows 
Not sky alone and willows' grace, 
But color of an unborn rose, 
And wonder on an unseen. face. 
99 



ELEGY FOR THE IRISH POET 
FRANCIS LEDWIDGE 

{Killed in action — July SI, 1917) 

Never more singing 
Will you go now, 
Wearing wild moonlight 
On your brow. 
The moon's white mood 
In your silver mind 
Is all forgotten. 
Words of wind 
From oif the hedgerow 
After rain, 

You do not hear them ; 
They are vain. 
There is a linnet 
Craves a song, 
And you returning 
Before long. 
Now who will tell her, 
Who can say 
On what great errand 
You are away? 
100 



Elegy for the Irish Poet Francis Ledwidge 

You whose kindred 
Were hills of Meath, 
Who sang the lane-rose 
From her sheath, 
What voice will cry them 
The grief at dawn 
Or say to the blackbird 
You are gone? 



101 



THE WILDERNESS 

I found myself alone . . . and then 
No man differed from other men 
And they were like a mood gone by. 
The planets quivered on the sky 

And poured themselves in silver streams, 
The wilderness was blurred with dreams 
And starlight and the ghost of blue. 
Trees, with their great wings lifted through 

The mist, were stirring where it thinned. 
The young moon floated up the wind, 
And from the warm and hidden ground 
I heard the multitudinous sound 

Of life I felt and used to know 
A thousand thousand years ago, 
And mean to know again some day 
A thousand thousand years away. 



102 



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